Disclosed herein is a retainer for retaining a harness and causing the harness together with a connection element for an electric/electronic circuit to be supported with respect to a portion of a frame of a seat in a vehicle.
Generally, wiring of a harness of various electric/electronic equipment in a vehicle is performed in such a manner that the harness is wired to be immediately adjacent to and located along a frame of a vehicle seat and a terminal of the harness is connected to a connection element such as a coupler for an electric/electronic circuit.
The connection element is fixed with respect to a surface of a portion of the frame of the vehicle seat such as a pan frame by an anchor-like clip. In order to prevent shift of the wiring of the harness and/or application of tensile stress to the terminal of the harness which may occur due to the weight of a person sitting on the vehicle seat, the harness is fixed, through a harness retaining clip of an anchor-shape, with respect to a surface of a second seat frame portion or a flange surface which is adjacent the surface of the seat frame portion to which the connection element is fixed. The harness retaining clip is provided with a winding band and a fastening ring for fastening the winding band. The winding band is connected at an end thereof to the fastening ring. By causing the winding band to be wound around the harness and then causing a free end portion of the winding band to be inserted through the fastening ring, the harness is retained by the harness retaining clip.
Such harness retaining clips are disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. Hei. 6-73577 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-325326.
In order to fix the harness with respect to the surface of the second seat frame portion or the flange surface by the harness retaining clip, a wider space must be provided on the surface of the second seat frame portion or the flange surface. In addition, when plural harnesses are required to be wired to vertically intersect, a lower harness must be wired under an upper harness before fixing of the upper harness is performed. Therefore, the wiring procedure of the harnesses may depend upon positions in which the harness retaining clips are secured. Moreover, the harness and the connection element are fixed by the separate clips, resulting in increase in the number of parts required for wiring the harness.
The most serious problem occurs when there is no optimal position in which the harness retaining clip is secured. In a case where the harness is not clipped to the seat frame portion, when the person sits on the vehicle seat, to thereby cause a cushion of the vehicle seat to be compressed by the weight of the person and/or cause springs for supporting the cushion to be deformed by the weight of the person, the harness may be shifted and/or the tensile stress may be applied to the terminal of the harness which is connected to the connection element.